Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, although wave energy is not currently economic, we believe that in the longer term it has the potential for significant cost reduction. We are therefore providing support to help realise that potential.
	In August last year, we announced a £50 million marine renewables deployment fund that will provide continued support to wave and tidal stream power technologies. That builds on the £20 million of support for research and development provided to the sector since 1999 and the £1.2 million provided towards the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. Additionally, the Carbon Trust has invested more than £6 million in marine energy projects, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has a £2.6 million SUPERGEN marine programme.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, I am not certain that in this case there is an issue of economies of scale. The position is that the cost of wave and tidal energy is still orders of magnitude higher than any other at the moment. At about 15 to 20p per kilowatt hour, it is still very expensive. It is also not true to say that there is no question of legacy. There is a real question of how to decommission barrage lagoons and what impact that has on the environment. I am not aware that the regulatory system is particularly complicated. Clearly, environmental impact should be applied to this in the same way as it is to any other project in the energy field.

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, the right reverend Prelate made the point that we have in this country very favourable conditions for tidal and wave generation. Having said that, I do not think that we have made any prediction about what could be achieved in terms of each energy source in this way. It clearly depends not only on favourable conditions but on the cost and development of technologies. We believe that the spread between different technologies should be decided by the marketplace and not by attempts to make Government predictions.

Viscount Tenby: My Lords, I wonder whether I could tempt the Minister in one particular area. How much attention and money is being spent on one specific area, namely the harnessing of the Severn bore?

Lord Sainsbury of Turville: My Lords, on 13 January last year, I gave in detail the exact reasons why we did not think that we should go ahead with the Severn barrage project at the moment. I remind noble Lords that it would cost between £10 billion and £14 billion and also raises very strong environmental issues.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for giving so much detail on the potential for tidal wave energy, even though it is uneconomic. Will he now give us something of equivalent detail on what we are doing to preserve the nuclear option for generation of electricity, should the target of 20 per cent of renewables not be achieved? It is all very well having great detail on what appears to be unattainable. Can we have parallel details on that which we will need?

Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, the research that has been done in Swansea Bay on tidal lagoons is extremely promising. The Severn Estuary has the second highest tidal race in the world. One the problems that came to the fore after a meeting that was organised by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, was that there was inadequate money for the research and development that would make tidal power economic. May I suggest to the Minister that the present contribution of £50 million to the industry is inadequate, particularly when compared with that given to wind power?

Lord Garden: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her helpful Answer. I am sure that her brief shows her that the operation was not quite as smooth as she describes.
	Given the widespread concerns about the poor levels of registration among service voters, will the Minister undertake that the Ministry of Defence will put in train a survey to find out how many service people are registered and in what way, so that the Electoral Commission, when it comes to carry out its investigation, which it has told me it is going to do after the election, will have proper data to look at?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, there has been no decision on lifting the embargo, and to support any such decision this Government would have to be satisfied that it was the right thing to do. The lifting of the embargo should not result in the increase of arms exports to China, as the European Council has made clear. The United Kingdom Government have been discussing the issue with all our friends, including through our official relationship with Japan and our unofficial relationship with Taiwan. As my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary has said, there are problems now because of the concern raised by the anti-secession law passed on 14 March in China.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, as we have discussed before, although the word "embargo" implies a total ban on exports of all things on the military list, as the noble Lord will know, there are exports of goods from the military list. Those were published last year, and there were something in the region of 140 or so individual export licences, not all of them from the military list but relating to other matters as well, of concern in that area.
	The fact is that there is not a change of policy on this, but there is certainly a change of nuancing in my Answer. Let me be clear: it is entirely right and logical that we should proceed in lifting the embargo and strengthening the EU code, because it is already a better instrument for ensuring that we have proper regulation of arms exports. That is the logical position. But I agree that in view of what happened in China on 14 March in relation to the secession legislation that was passed, there is a different political landscape is emerging. That is why my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary, when he was interviewed on this matter last week, said that there were now political problems, and greater political problems than there had been, in lifting that embargo. The shift is inherent, of course, in the anti-secession legislation passed in China.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do not agree that there had been no change. There have been changes. There are still very considerable concerns over human rights in China, as the noble Lord, Lord Garden, is aware. I do not believe that there has been no change at all; there have been changes in a number of respects. There is certainly a much better dialogue with China on human rights than there was at the time when the embargo was imposed.
	The noble Lord has simply used different language from the language that I used. What he called a diplomatic signal I called a political message. I believe that we are pretty much on the same line over this.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I do not really see that the question of "going it alone", as the noble Lord puts it, arises here. The Question before us at the moment relates to a European embargo or moving to a European code. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, asked me why we could not keep the embargo in place and move to toughening up the code at the same time. That is what the noble Lord would like to do; he would like to ensure that we do not ease up on the political signal while strengthening the practicalities. It is interesting that the Question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, acknowledges that it is in fact the code that would be used to do the strengthening, not the embargo.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, we have made inquiries about this and we are not aware of any IRGC presence in Lebanon. But, of course, the purport of UNSCR 1559 is clear, that all remaining foreign forces from wherever they come should withdraw from Lebanon. However, in relation to the first part of my noble and learned friend's Question, the withdrawal has not yet been fully achieved. There has been a great deal said on withdrawal by the Syrian Government but that has to be followed by full implementation of that withdrawal in relation not only to Syrian troops but also to the Syrian intelligence apparatus and, of course, to their security forces as well.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, further to the Question of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Archer, surely the Government are aware that there are Iranian troops on Lebanese soil and that Iran has been pouring money—$40 million in recent months—and Katushka missiles and various other equipment into the hands of Hezbollah in Lebanon. Is that not a very serious consequential threat as and when the Syrians withdraw? What can we do to reinforce and help the Lebanese people avoid having new masters in place of their past ones?

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, my noble friend asks what actions the Government will take. The Government have been very clear in our view that the Lebanese must be left to have full control and full sovereignty of their country. I myself was in Lebanon a couple of weeks ago. I met not only with members of the Government but, as your Lordships would expect, with members of the opposition. That message was not only very fulsomely given on my part, it was extremely well received in Lebanon and was, indeed, given full coverage in the media. I am bound to say to the noble Lord that it is at the moment a question of diplomatic pressure which we must keep up in order to ensure that the Lebanese people will be able to have free, unfettered elections in May without outside interference not only from foreign countries but also from the militias in the way that my noble friend has indicated.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, it was, indeed, that extension of the Lebanese president's period of office which triggered UNSCR 1559, which this country supported. Sadly, it was at that stage as well that Rafiq Hariri, the then Prime Minister, resigned office and as we all know, tragically Mr Hariri was assassinated. There is much speculation about who was behind that assassination but it is clear that that assassination in itself has triggered the most enormous resurgence of Lebanese patriotism and a Lebanese desire to see foreign soldiers off their soil and to regain their own sovereignty. The noble Baroness asks what we are going to do. I think that it is happening at the moment in Lebanon, particularly in Beirut. I look forward to the elections in May when I hope that the voice of the Lebanese people will be heard clearly.

Baroness Amos: rose to move to resolve, That for the purposes of the resolutions of the House relating to the entitlement to recover expenses of travel, office costs and day and overnight subsistence, attendance at the House on Friday 11 March shall constitute attendance at a separate Sitting of the House.

Lord Rooker: rose to move, That the draft orders and regulations laid before the House on 10, 23, 21, 7 and 21 February respectively be approved [9th, 11th, 10th, 10th and 11th Reports from the Joint Committee respectively].

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, this order was considered in Grand Committee. I beg to move.
	Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 9 February be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Lord McIntosh of Haringey.)

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: rose to move, That the draft order laid before the House on 24 February be approved [11th Report from the Joint Committee].

Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the report before the House today has, as usual, a number of elements to it, and I shall seek to refer briefly to them all. However, the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, will inevitably focus much of our attention on the issue of the general debate day. The House will recall that this matter has twice been debated in recent years. In 1999, the House voted 225–87 against a change. On the last occasion, in January 2001, it again voted against a change, that time by 130–128, a majority of just two.
	The only significant changes to our procedures since then have been the move to sitting at 11.00 a.m. on Thursdays and the target rising time of 10.00 p.m. on other days. The Procedure Committee agreed that it would not be able to make a conclusive recommendation and recognised that it was a matter that the House as a whole should decide. Accordingly, I shall not seek to influence the debate, and I look forward to hearing what your Lordships have to say.
	I shall, however, say a brief word about the procedure that your Lordships might observe today. Once I have sat down, and the Question has been put, the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, will move his amendment. A debate will then follow in accordance with the speakers list that has been circulated. I know that some noble Lords would prefer discussion of the general debate day to be separated from discussion of other items in the report, but that is not our practice and it would, I venture to suggest, be likely to prolong proceedings. When noble Lords who wish to speak have done so, I shall attempt to reply. The House will then take a decision on the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers. If it is agreed to, I understand that the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, will not move her amendment and the Question will then be put on the Motion as amended. If, on the other hand, the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, is rejected, the noble Baroness will move her amendment formally, and I recommend that your Lordships should then agree to it without further debate or division.
	I turn now to the other matters in the report. The proposed amendments to the Standing Orders are to reflect the change in our proceedings on a Thursday and to reflect certain provisions of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004. If your Lordships in due course approve the report, a Motion to give effect to the amendments will be tabled by the Leader of the House. The most complex item in the report is that on exchanges between the Houses on public Bills. The report proposes changes in the way that the House deals with the final ping-pong stages of Bills. Most importantly, it proposes that it should be possible to debate and take a decision on packages of related amendments together, instead of deciding separately on all elements of the package.
	There are three main reasons for that proposal. First, the Commons has been dealing with amendments at the ping-pong stages in this way for some 10 years. It is therefore increasingly difficult for this House to maintain its traditional procedures, where each proposition from the Commons is decided separately. Secondly, there is a danger that the different procedures in the two Houses can lead to different views of the double insistence rule, and could, as in the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill last Session, result in ambiguity as to whether a Bill has been lost. Thirdly, the Procedure Committee took the view that dealing with amendments in packages would allow some streamlining of the complex procedures at those stages. We considered that that could be beneficial to the House, as it would indicate more clearly than previously the connections between the different Motions on the Order Paper.
	With the agreement of the usual channels, an experiment was carried out on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill two weeks ago using the procedures recommended in the report. I hope that the House will agree that the proceedings on those exchanges were considerably simplified as a result. I conclude by confirming that the Clerk of the House of Commons was consulted as to the terms of this passage in the report, and he agrees that it is consistent with the joint statement agreed by him and the Clerk of the Parliaments last year, which is appended to the report.
	Finally, I come to the provision of time for debate of committee reports. Your Lordships may recall that when last we debated a report of the Procedure Committee that was the subject of considerable discussion, and I undertook to invite the Procedure Committee to examine the matter further. I am now happy to report a number of developments. New administrative arrangements for forecasting and monitoring the demand for debates have produced significant improvements, and I think I am right in saying that most Select Committee chairmen are satisfied that that is the case. The section of the Notices and Orders of the Day entitled No Day Named Part III now lists only those reports that are actually ripe for debate and so gives a more accurate picture of what one might reasonably describe as the queue.
	We have also seen a successful debate in the Moses Room on a Motion in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Peston. We have therefore concluded that no procedural change is necessary at this time, but that the matter should be reviewed further next Session. We also concluded that Session 2003–04 is a reasonable base-line against which to measure whether any debates taken in the Moses Room are genuinely additional to debates in the Chamber. I beg to move.

Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, as the Chairman of Committees explained, I tabled the amendment to resolve the choice set out in paragraphs 17 to 21 of the report. As the Chairman of Committees said, the question of switching the general debate day was first discussed in the House on 22 March 1999 and, as the report explains, again on 23 January 2001. On that occasion four years ago, I moved the successful amendment. I have no complaint about revisiting the matter. Since then, we have almost 100 new Members in the House and we have lost some of our former colleagues. Other Members are entitled to change their views. I only ask newer Members in particular not to consider this as a trivial matter, a detail of procedure on the fringe of the larger issue of reform discussed in the House two months ago.
	I agree that a switch between Wednesday and Thursday is almost certainly more convenient for a majority of Members. In effect, the House would have a two and a half day working parliamentary week and, except for a few days in the spring and summer, Members would have no further serious obligations on Thursdays. We would arrive, if we chose, on Monday afternoon, and more often than not we would leave just before dinner on Wednesday or probably soon after. In the debate six years ago the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, was eloquent on the case for change, and the noble Lord, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, and the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, among others, made a strong case for change on the basis of inconvenience for those living and working in the north, Scotland and the other territorial extremities. The case for change was repeated in the debate four years ago rather more forcefully. I fully understood then, and I understand now, the difficulties and irritation of travelling back and forth twice a week when that seems necessary. For Members coming from distant places, it would be much easier and more convenient to switch Wednesday and Thursday.
	It would also be generally convenient for busy Ministers and Government Back-Benchers even if they live and work in or near London, although in that case I am rather less sympathetic about hardship. If there was a switch, a majority of Ministers would be free on Thursday to get on with their work in their departments or stretch their visits around the country or abroad. There would be fewer unexpected events to dislocate their orderly business. I readily admit that for 11 years as Minister in the Commons I occasionally found Parliament rather a nuisance that absorbed too much of my time, but Ministers should always remember that Parliament comes first and government follows. As for Back-Benchers, there is nothing more wearisome than hanging around just in case there might be an unexpected Division, but that is the price one pays when one party wins an election and implements its legislative programme.
	Nowadays, the House is expected to pack up on Thursday about 7 p.m., but if there was a switch Thursday would become a relaxed day with few obligations; the beginning of a long, long-weekend. That begs the question of whether switching Wednesday and Thursday is significant. Are we making rather too much fuss? Many of our Members who make an immense contribution to the work of the Chamber and in committees successfully combine that with important obligations outside. I believe that they will not reduce their parliamentary work if the House effectively has a two and a half day week. But I also believe that sooner or later, perhaps imperceptibly or over a Parliament, Thursday will begin to die. There will be a poorer attendance at Questions and fewer speakers in general debates. There will be fewer Members in the Corridors and Lobbies, the Library, the Guest Room, the Bishops' Bar, the Dining Room and elsewhere. This place will be like any half-closed place of work—empty of life and flat.
	The processes of Parliament are more complex and subtle than an office or institution in either the public or the private sector. The personal contacts and relationships within and across parties help to create the fabric of its effective role. A two-and-a-half-day legislative week will give this Executive or any executive—the government of the day—a little more freedom at a time when, by common consent, they are becoming much too dominant.
	I recognise convenience. I also acknowledge the family-friendly spirit of the age. I accept the need to strike a balance between obligations and interests. But we should hold fast to Parliament, of which this House is an integral part, and not allow the erosion of its weight and influence. I beg to move.
	Moved, as an amendment to the Motion, at end to insert "but with the omission of paragraph 20(a)".—(Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank.)

Baroness Lockwood: My Lords, as the two amendments are being taken together, it is appropriate that I speak now. My amendment is of course contradictory to that of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers. It would, in effect, sanction the changing of the general debates from Wednesday to Thursday. My arguments too are different from and contrary to his. I submit that the House is now being given a much greater opportunity to hold the Government to task in a number of ways, which I will explain. On the previous occasion when we debated the matter, it was a three-day working week; it is now a two and a half day working week. But the workload of the House has increased considerably, and there are many avenues through which Members make their contribution to the work of the House without sitting for any length of time in this Chamber.
	The House has changed considerably. It has changed in its membership; as the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said, nearly 100 Members—I think that it is 96—have entered it since we previously debated the issue. If we take the changes in membership and in how we work that have taken place since 1999, they are considerable and important.
	In the 1999 discussion, the focus of the debate was on the importance of general debates on Wednesdays. It was even held by some that those debates were of equal importance to the scrutiny of legislation. I found that argument difficult to accept then, and it is impossible to accept it at present. Of course the Wednesday general debates are useful and of interest. On occasion, they are extremely important—when the House is looking at some issue that is non-partisan but perhaps political or social and emerging into the public arena, or when the matters are rather sensitive and difficult to debate in other forums.
	However, general debates on Wednesdays have to be taken in the context of the business of the House as a whole. In all the consideration given to the role of this Chamber when we have debated the future of the House of Lords, there has been unanimity on the overriding importance of the House as a revising Chamber. The methods of revising and calling the Government to account have been extended, and I shall mention some of them.
	We now take the Committee stage of some Bills off the Floor of the House and put them into Grand Committee. Some minor business of the House that does not necessarily require the whole attention of everyone takes place in the same way. That enables the House simultaneously to consider two sets of business. Many Members did not like the change to the way in which we handled Committees. I confess that I had reservations about it myself; I did not realise until I came to this House how many conservative strains there were in my nature. But that change has been very useful and valid. We need the time to deal, at different times of the week, with different sets of government and House business.
	More draft Bills are now considered by a joint pre-legislative scrutiny committee. Many Bills are considered by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. The House's own Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee has grown in influence and power. That has all increased the opportunities of the House to influence policy and call the Government to account.
	So too has the increased number of Select Committees. When I joined the House in 1978, there were only two Select Committees—those on science and technology and on Europe. There are now at least three permanent Select Committees—the Science and Technology Committee, the European Union Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee. Then there is the Constitution Committee, and from time to time other ad hoc Select Committees are set up to deal with specific issues of great importance.
	That adds up to a much increased workload for the House. It cannot be spread over two and a half days and will not be. It will be spread over the week as it is now.
	The general debates have to be considered in the context of the changes that I have mentioned. There is now more work competing for the prime day of Wednesday. It is not beyond the ingenuity of government business managers and the usual channels, because both have to agree, for a sensible allocation of time to be worked out, both for Government business and for influencing the policies of the nation through all the other ways that I have suggested.
	The House prides itself on being representative and I think that it is. All the professions, business people, people from the public sector, the voluntary sector and the charitable sector, and people involved in family affairs are represented in this House. But we are not so representative when it comes to regional representation. Again, in the consideration of reforms of this House, it was almost unanimously agreed that we need to have more regional representation.
	I suggest that it might be a good idea for the House to start by becoming more region-friendly. When that issue was considered previously and again today, the question of the convenience of Members, particularly those such as myself who come from the north of England, have been mentioned. I would suggest that it is not a matter of personal convenience, but it is a matter to better facilitate all Members of your Lordships' House, so that they can bring in their important outside interests to add to the value of our debates in that way. I do not see that that would be diminished in any way by moving Wednesdays' debates to Thursdays. It would give us greater flexibility, but would not bring about any great changes.
	Attendance in this Chamber is no indication of the strength of involvement of your Lordships. Wednesday debates can be an example. On 16 March, I sat in for the whole of the first debate—apart from the last three minutes. I sat in because I thought that that debate on the future of our 16 to 18 year-olds was important, although I was not speaking. Yet, during that debate, putting aside the Front Benches, there were not more than 20 Members in the Chamber at any one time. The core was around 14 or 15 and other Members came in and out as they felt fit. It was not until the last few minutes of the debate, when other Members began coming in for the next debate, that there were more than 20 Members in the Chamber—and it was, again, probably less than 30.
	So, we cannot take that as an indication, because on that very same day, according to the records of the House, some 399 Members were present in the House at some time on some aspect of your Lordship's business. I suggest that there would be little difference if we changed to Thursdays. Indeed, if we look at the record of daily attendances, there is a pattern. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays attendances are, by and large, fairly even—although they fluctuate. Tuesday is the best day of the week for them. I suggest that that type of pattern would continue.
	I hope that Members will support my amendment, which is for the change to take place for one Session of Parliament. If it does not work, we will of course review the situation and decide what to do. So I hope that you will support my amendment. In order to do that, I must ask you to vote against the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, because only in that way can we resolve the question before us.

Lord Williamson of Horton: My Lords, although the main point of interest today is obviously the question of the Wednesday/Thursday debate, I want, first, to say a word about the inclusion in the report of phrases about the important step forward on exchanges between the Houses on public Bills. That really should not be underrated. The report clarified that packages from the Commons should be considered only if they are confined to single or closely related issues. It thus puts a block on a possible slippery slope to inappropriate packaging of issues, which would otherwise risk diminishing the powers of this House. That point should not be underrated; it is important and I very much commend it to the House.
	Like the noble Baroness the Leader of the House, I want to congratulate the Clerk of the Parliaments and his colleagues, who discussed this rather difficult issue with their colleagues in the other place. We saw the advantage of that during debate on the Prevention of Terrorism Bill, when we were able to go on for what I describe as "a good long time" expressing our view without ditching the Bill. I think that that was an important step forward and it is a real improvement in the protection of our powers in this House.
	I now turn to the question of a possible exchange of business between Wednesdays and Thursdays, which has been raised by the committee and in the Motions today. It is clearly an issue for individual Members. There are differences of view within the party-political groups and, surprisingly enough, within the Cross-Bench group. This was shown by our earlier discussion and votes, including the last very narrow majority, and it is shown by the way in which the Procedure Committee did not attempt to reach an agreed view but passed the issue to the House. I speak as an individual and I want to comment briefly.
	First, we have to consider the effect on the business of the House of a change, which would no doubt be experimental and subject to review after a period of time. I express the view that, if we make the change and return to the matter later, perhaps we should also consider an issue which is not on the Order Paper today—that is, the possibility of a debate day on a Monday. I do not want to press that point but, if we are to review the subject later, we might consider it.
	Changing the business from one day to the other would not in itself reduce the time available for the House's principal functions of scrutiny of legislation and debate on issues of importance to Parliament and the public. It might even increase it if there were no longer a lunch break on a Thursday. But we should be realistic. We should foresee, as some already have done, that the attendance of Members in the House on a Thursday as a debate day would be likely to be lower than it presently is on a Wednesday as a debate day. I believe that that would be the case.
	So far as Cross-Benchers are concerned, the difference would probably be slight as we are rather good attendees at debates—probably among the 18 or 20 referred to; I do not count them but often there are that many present. In the last Session, 23 per cent of those participating in debates were Cross-Benchers, and so we are fairly steady attendees. I do not think that that would change too much but overall there would be a change.
	Secondly, we have to keep in mind that many Members of the House have no salary here—poor things—and they have to work for a living, or they hold a wide range of posts, often honorary but time-consuming, in many non-governmental organisations or charities. Some of us also attach a great deal of importance to our responsibilities in parts of the UK far from Westminster—in my case, in the "territorial extremity", as it has been referred to and which I love dearly. The territorial extremity should be given full attention, and those of us from those parts do not like to become too London-based. The change of day would be welcome to some of those Members.
	Finally, we need to take account of practical consequences. The most evident would be timing of the meetings of the political party groups and of the Cross-Benchers. If there were a change, it would probably be necessary to change the political and Cross-Bench meetings to Wednesday and it would be necessary to have available a day earlier the Forthcoming Business. I do not know whether that is possible, but it would be difficult to organise those meetings without it.
	Those seem to me to be the considerations on which we should individually vote today. Like other noble Lords, I shall vote as an individual on this matter.

Lord Lipsey: My Lords, I do not think any noble Lord on these Benches will be surprised that the main opposition to the proposal tabled by my noble friend Lady Lockwood comes from the Liberal Democrat Benches. They have put her suggestion down to its convenience to government, but they are not likely to have any experience of that and we would not expect that argument to weigh much with them. As a matter of fact, it does not weight much with me. I find it hard to see why the convenience of government is greatly increased. As my noble friend Lady Lockwood said, this House has, over time, become hugely more effective in scrutinising the Executive. It is extraordinary to believe for a moment that a switch from Wednesday to Thursday would affect that fundamental reality. It would not affect it in the least.
	I am moved to rise by the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, about long, long weekends. I am proud to say that the noble Lord has been a friend of mine for a very long time. But those of us who have the pleasure of having homes in London and who can go home to our family at night should be a little chary of prescribing a more bitter mechanism and a more bitter lifestyle to those who always have to go to some not very pleasant little hotel on a Wednesday night. That does not improve the role that they can play in this House and it is not something that we should dismiss lightly.
	On the noble Lord's phrase, "the long, long weekend", there are Members of this House for whom that is true, particularly the older Members. I do not refer to my noble friend Lady Lockwood, who is a mere stripling in this place, as am older Member—

Lord Wallace of Saltaire: My Lords, we are voting on a personal not a party standing. I strongly support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood. I support it for two strong reasons: first, when I was recruited to the House, I was assured that it was a part-time House. It remains a part-time House, and I have continued to earn a salary and—thank goodness—a pension, to which I shall shortly be entitled—since I entered it. Secondly, it is very important that this place should be regionally diverse. To be regionally diverse, we have to ensure that it is possible for new Members—we will recruit new members in the next two or three years—to continue to work and live with their family outside London as well as contributing to the House.
	I was extremely lucky when I was appointed to the House. Three months earlier, I had been offered a job at a university in London—10 minutes from the House. It has therefore been possible for 10 years to continue teaching my students, sometimes seeing them here and occasionally—I hope no one has noticed—marking essays on the Bench; and thus to combine the two. If I had still been at the University of Manchester, where I was first employed, or perhaps at the University of Hull, which has contributed a remarkably large number of people to the House, it would be much more difficult.
	I realised as soon as I came here that some of the best Members of the House had been or remained members of county councils—in Lancashire, north Yorkshire, as well as in Suffolk and Sussex. It is important that we continue to attract such people, who bring a range of political experience that enriches what we do.
	There is a danger of a romantic view about the Wednesday debates. I took part on the second debate on 16 March. Throughout that debate, there were two people on the Conservative Benches: a Front-Bench spokesman and a Whip. It was a Wednesday. Would there have been more if it had been a Thursday? There certainly could not have been fewer.
	The current distribution of Members of the House is not as diverse as it might be. I have spent some time over the past two or three days trying to organise visits for Members to Yorkshire, the north-west and the north-east during what have been kindly described as the "county council elections" on 5 May. I have been struck by the number of times that I have had to ask people to travel up from the south-east to the north, rather than being able to draw on people who come from the area. That is not the people who live outside London. I was accused by a member of my own group in one of our early discussions of belonging to the Tuscan Yorkshire tendency. Many of us have families who work some distance away. We also like to spend a little time with them at weekends.
	One Member who stayed until Friday evening during the great confrontation between the two Houses remarked to me in the course of rearranging her life that it took her seven and a half hours to travel back from the House to her home in Scotland and that the decision therefore to stay on from a Thursday afternoon to a Friday evening was not one that she wished to take lightly. Nevertheless, I want such people to remain active Members of the House and to be attracted to the House. For those reasons, I shall support the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood.

Lord Graham of Edmonton: My Lords, my contribution will be brief, but it is based on Membership of the House for more than 20 years.
	In 1983, when I came to the House, I can recall that the decision of the business managers was not to meet on a Monday. We did not meet on Monday because that was the weight of business. Too often, Members in all parts of the House are hidebound either by protocol or heritage in such matters. Let us examine our own convenience and contribution.
	I am enormously grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, for the admirable way in which he pitched the arguments that he advanced. I see no virtue in sticking to Wednesday for debate day for the sake of sticking to it. I decided to come in last Wednesday. I sat in for the two debates—not for all of them, but I popped in—and I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, who has been a good friend of mine over the years, that I sat here and looked at the completely empty Benches on that side of the House in the second debate, which was on a modest topic called Iraq. There was only one Member, a Back-Bencher. That was the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. He is often in his place. He was here earlier; I am sorry he is not here now. I should like to pay tribute to him. He came in and took part.
	There is far too much romantic thought about the value and importance of debates in this House. There are good debates, there are passionate debates and there are well attended debates, but we should not forget that there are debates like those held last Wednesday. I do not make a party point; I have been the only person on my side on subjects like housing, when I have bemoaned the fact that the interest on our Benches in housing seemed to have declined over the years. We try to support our own side. We do that very well, but I welcome the opportunity for change.
	The noble Lord, Lord Denham, who is still in his place, drew attention to the change of a Thursday and how that change from 2.30 pm to 11 am could very well affect attendance. Of course it could, but I suggest that there are some people who would not take part in a debate on a Wednesday but might well take part in a debate on a Thursday because the House starts at 11 o'clock. We just do not know. The Motion asks to change an arrangement for our convenience. The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, said that it was likely that the majority of Members of the House would find it more convenient to switch from a Wednesday to a Thursday. That remains to be seen.
	Reference has been made to the nature of the House. Of course, it continues to be a part-time House, more and more doing a full-time job. For the past few years—possibly for a few years more—we have been in the middle of effecting great change. It is not just since 1999 that we have considered a change. In all my time in the House, the question of whether the debate day should be a Wednesday or a Thursday has been talked about. I am conscious of the fact that we need to make a decision.
	The noble Lord, Lord McNally, chided those on this side of the House who may vote for the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, and said that we should remember that governments change. Of course they do—oh ye of little faith on both the Liberal Benches and the Conservative Benches. There may be a feeling that there is some benefit on the margin to the government of the day from the change, but I am prepared to accept of course that this Government will one day not be the government and that it could very well be the Conservatives or the Liberal Democrats—but not just yet.
	I am all for change, providing it is done cautiously and in the direction in which I want to go. If there is no change, I shall still enjoy coming here and participating. If there is a change, it will make no difference to me. Of course, there are consequences for party meetings and so on. In the Labour Party—as those many Members on the other side who once were Members of the Labour Party will recall—the PLP used to meet on a Wednesday morning. Now it meets on a Monday evening. That was altered because of changes that were taking place. It has a bearing on when business is available. As a member of the usual channels, I know that such changes cannot be imposed; they must be made gradually.
	I say to noble Lords on the other side of the House, whom I appreciate as colleagues, that we are about our own convenience. There is far too much romance in thinking that Wednesday debates per se are great and good; there are good and bad aspects. I support the change proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord, and I see no reason why those arrangements should not continue. I welcome the words of the noble Baroness the Leader of the House on that.
	Broadly speaking, therefore, I think that this is an experiment worth trying. We have had experiments in the past that have not worked and we have been able to go back. I see no reason why, in the next Session of Parliament, we should not be able to reverse this decision if it is seen not to serve the interests, not just of ourselves, but also of the House. I yield to no one in my admiration of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, as a fierce parliamentarian, but there are a few of us, on all sides, who wish to protect the importance of this House.
	Nobody can deny that this is a hardworking House. It is recognised that people who sign up to become Members of this House sign up to giving up a great deal of their time and energy. In the words of the noble Lord, Lord McNally, if we agree to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood, it will not stop our ability to make Parliament, particularly this House, messy and unpredictable. Therefore, I shall not support the Lord, Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank, but I will support the noble Baroness, Lady Lockwood.

Lord Rodgers of Quarry Bank: My Lords, perhaps I should simply put it on the record that I caught the 2.35 train from Euston to Manchester yesterday and returned at 8.15 from Manchester, Piccadilly, and I have survived. I say that because I am quite familiar with what goes on beyond Watford.
	We have had a good debate and all of the issues have been plainly set out. I shall do no more than take the necessary procedural steps by asking to test the opinion of the House.

Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement made by the Foreign Secretary in the other place. It strikes me as slightly ironic that it was the Freedom of Information Act and the provisions under Section 40 that apparently led to the reluctant revealing of the letter and then to the revealing later in the day of the paragraph in the letter. It raises a question in my slightly sceptical mind as to whether the Freedom of Information Act will lead to more freedom of information in the long run. It does not seem to have had a very good start.
	I am quite surprised that the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General is not in his place. He is a Member of your Lordships' House and this matter directly concerns him. So, whoever in government decided to make the Statement, it would have been reasonable to expect his attendance here. Obviously it was not considered reasonable on the Government Benches.
	The fact that now emerges—I do not think the Government deny this—is that the missing paragraph shows very clearly that the Attorney-General changed his assessment—or his judgment or his view—in the weeks before he reached his final view. Reference has been made to the Butler report but I can see nothing in that report—neither in paragraph 376 or anywhere else—to indicate that he changed his mind or that there was an evolution of views, to put it kindly, which led to his final prognostication.
	Faced with the very serious matter of going to war, it would have been better for the Government if the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General had put all his assessments before the House. I know that it was private legal advice to the Government and that there is a custom—which I understand—of keeping private such advice, but there have been several precedents for bringing this kind of advice out into the open.
	The Minister and I have argued slightly as to whether "several" means "numerous", as I perhaps rashly claimed, or whether it just means "several", but on three or four occasions in the past century or so an Attorney-General has felt it right to present all his advice to both Houses and to the public. That would have helped in this case, particularly as one of the main planks in the argument of the justification for war—namely, that there were weapons of mass destruction—turned out to be non-existent. There were no weapons of mass destruction, so it was therefore all the more important to set out the views of the Attorney-General on why he thought the war was justified.
	Ultimately, when we have to go to war to try to make this a more stable and better world, as was the aim, one has to ask whether the Government, the Attorney-General and the Minister really believe that the United Nations and its resolutions are the sole source of international legitimacy on which everything else depends. Do they believe that? We managed in Kosovo without UN resolutions and there have been other wars—and no one welcomes them—when it became necessary to take action, through a coalition of democracies, and it was not possible to wait for the full procedures of the UN to be completed.
	Was that the reason the Attorney-General changed his mind? Did he realise, first, that it would be good to obtain UN cover; and, secondly, that the second resolution was not forthcoming from the UN? There has to be more frankness and candour on these matters than there has been so far.
	War is based on trust. I want to live in a society where we trust our government, of whatever colour and party, but that commodity seems in very short supply in this case. The time has come for a good deal clearer exposition of why we are involved and what we are trying to achieve, much of which I applaud. We must have clear, firm and honest reasons.

Lord Thomas of Gresford: My Lords, I, too, am grateful to the Minister for repeating the Statement. Does she agree that the legality of the war is an important—if not vital—issue? Does she further agree that if it was a crime of aggression, as Ms Wilmshurst contended, it affects not only the political leaders but also the military leaders, and that was the reason for the concern of the Chief of the Defence Staff prior to the invasion to ensure that he was acting legally? After all, Field Marshal Keitel, the head of the German forces, was executed at Nuremberg.
	Does the noble Baroness agree that we can exclude as justification for the invasion the issues of self-defence, pre-emptive strike, humanitarian intervention and regime change? The Attorney-General has never argued that those were the justifications. He has always argued that the invasion was justified in the enforcement of the UN resolutions of 1990 and 1991—namely, those referred to by the noble Baroness in the Statement—Resolutions 678 and 687.
	This issue was discussed in a memorandum by Professor Christopher Greenwood, QC, who is often thought to be the only academic to support the Government in this matter. He argued that Resolution 678 could still authorise military action in a memorandum that was placed in evidence by the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs. His opinion was dated 24 October 2002. He said:
	"it is open to the Security Council to determine that Iraq continues to be in breach of the ceasefire conditions in Resolution 687 and that that breach involves a threat to international peace and security which peaceful means have failed to resolve".
	But the machinery that he referred to in his opinion was that although it might not necessarily require a Security Council resolution, it could be done by means of a presidential statement—that is, the President of the United Nations—which would require a consensus in the Security Council.
	He continued:
	"Moreover, a resolution stipulating that Iraq must take certain steps by a prescribed date could (depending on its wording) mean that the Council was determining that failure by Iraq to take such steps was a breach threatening international peace and security".
	It was for that reason that the Government, with the support of the United States and other Governments, in the autumn of 2002 attempted to get into Resolution 1441 the trigger words which would authorise military action on behalf of the United Nations. Without such authority, the war and the invasion would be clearly illegal. But the Government failed to get those words into resolution 1441 and it ended up as a simple warning of the serious consequences of continued violation of Iraq's obligations. It did not say, as Professor Greenwood had suggested could be a justification, that the failure by Iraq to take such steps would be a breach threatening international peace and security.
	Because it did not say that, there was a move in the spring of 2003 to obtain a second resolution to justify military action. That was withdrawn because the jury of international opinion could not be persuaded that an invasion was justified. I have taken the position on a number of occasions that it cannot be argued that when the Government and the United States Government invaded Iraq they were acting as agents for the United Nations, which had refused to give them that specific authority.
	This was in February and March. We now know from Ms Wilmshurst's letter that the view taken by the Attorney-General on 7 March was very much as I have expressed it. What was the change of circumstance between 7 March and 17 March which could possibly alter the basis of the Attorney-General's opinion? I, too, regret that the Attorney-General is not in his place to enlighten us upon this.
	The Minister referred to the Butler report, which reveals an exchange on 14 and 15 March—and therefore between 7 and 17 March—between the Attorney General and the Prime Minister. On 14 March, two days after the Chief of the Defence Staff had asked the Attorney-General for legal advice about the legality of the war, the Attorney-General sought confirmation from the Prime Minister that,
	"it is unequivocally the Prime Minister's view that Iraq has committed further material breaches as specified in paragraph 4 of resolution 1441".
	On the following day, the Prime Minister's Private Secretary informed the Attorney-General that,
	"it is indeed the Prime Minister's unequivocal view that Iraq is in further material breach of its obligations, as in Operative Paragraph 4 of UNSCR 1441, because of false statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq pursuant to this resolution and failure by Iraq to co-operate fully in the implementation of the resolution".
	That being received on 15 March, the Attorney-General changed his position, clearly, and on 17 March gave the advice that the invasion was legal. But of course the machinery that Professor Greenwood had suggested was not employed. There was no return to the Security Council to ask the president to do what Professor Greenwood suggested he could do and make a presidential statement. The wording of Resolution 1441 clearly did not cover the situation that arose.
	Is it not obvious, as we have said all along, that the invasion of Iraq was illegal and that consequently, as Miss Wilmshurst advised, it was a crime of aggression, and remains so? That surely is the legal position. It has serious consequences that the Government have never taken on board.

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I thank the noble Lords, Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord Thomas of Gresford, for the way in which they have approached this issue, even if I cannot agree with a great deal of what they have said. They have said very different things, which comes as no surprise because we have been over these arguments many times already.
	The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, asked about the reluctance to publish the letter. He said that this had all stemmed from the Freedom of Information Act. Of course, it is the Freedom of Information Act which is cited in my right honourable friend's Statement as the reason for not revealing publicly information about a civil servant. I remember from my days as General Secretary of the First Division Association that by custom and practice, such details about civil servants are not released as a matter of form in order to protect their privacy, and they have a right to be protected.
	On the second point about why the references to the Government's legal advice were not revealed, again, that is dealt with in the body of the Statement. It is because it has been custom and practice, and was part of the Freedom of Information Act, that the advice of the Law Officers to Government should not be released. It is not only a matter that Parliament has discussed and agreed without demur, it is a matter that the Law Lords and the Bar Council have accepted. If Members on any side of the House are going to start saying it would be a very good thing to reveal the advice of the Law Officers, they would be taking on not only the position that was adopted when the Conservative Party was in government but also the position of another place when it passed the legislation without demur, the Law Lords and the Bar Council. If that is the position of the Conservative Party or indeed of the Liberal Democrats, it might be very interesting to hear it.
	The noble Lord says that there are precedents. I am glad that he has stopped saying that there are numerous precedents. He was able to mention that there had been three: one was Weston, when the Conservative Party was in government; the advice given was leaked from a Cabinet meeting, so it was eventually published. The other two related to legal cases which were before the courts. But never has legal advice on an issue such as this been revealed, and no more should it be. No Government would then be able to take in confidence the sort of legal advice that all governments need. The noble Lord looks down. He is a very wise man; he is a very sensible man. He knows that it would be wrong to publish that legal advice, whatever his friends down the other end of the Corridor say.
	The noble Lord went on to ask whether that means that the United Nations is the sole source for military action or the authorisation of military action against another country. He answered his own question. No. Of course not. We knew when we went into Kosovo that we would be blocked because some members of the Security Council would not sanction that military action. The instance then cited was the overwhelming humanitarian need. I have heard some of your Lordships argue that overwhelming humanitarian need could have been argued with reference to Iraq, given that it has been revealed that there are up to 300,000 bodies in mass graves there. This is an extraordinarily difficult question, as we all know, about where the authority for military action really resides.
	The noble Lord asked what changed. On 7 March, the question of the material breach was confirmed by the Hans Blix revelations to the Security Council when he revealed the numbers of questions which the Iraqis had conspicuously failed to answer which had been put to them by his group of inspectors. It is clear that the Attorney-General gave a clear, honest and reasonable view of his advice.
	A spokesman for the Attorney-General has said that these are more of the same questions; what matters is that as recently as 1 March this year, the Attorney-General was very clear to the House of Lords that the view set out in his parliamentary Answer of 17 March 2003 was his own genuinely held independent view that military action in Iraq was lawful. We base our decisions on the advice of our British Attorney-General. That is what all governments have done; that is what this Government have done. It is no different from what has happened before.
	The question of the legality is very important. We have said so throughout, to turn to the questions raised by the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford. He asked whether I thought that the legality was important. I stood here week after week saying that I thought the legality was important. How could any decent Minister say anything else? The fact is that the noble Lord and I disagree. The noble Lord, as a lawyer, is better qualified than I—of course he is. But on the Government side are also many lawyers who believe that what was done was right.
	If the noble Lord is more interested in talking to his colleagues—

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean: My Lords, I am in no doubt about the clarity of the advice of my noble and learned friend the Attorney-General. My noble friend Lady Ramsay referred to the 17 March 2003. I remember that evening very clearly indeed. Not only did we make the Statement on the legality of the war but we had a lengthy debate on the legality of the war. As I recall, the debate was kicked off by the noble Lord, Lord Goodhart, for the Liberal Democrat Benches. It was interrupted at 8.42 p.m. by a Statement that I repeated. We then went back to the legality of the war at 9.15 p.m. My goodness, we really went into the matter in great detail and with not a little passion.
	The position has not changed since then. We said then that we thought that a further resolution—my noble friend was right to say that we always refer to it as the second resolution; I think, by then, we must have been up to the 17th resolution—would be politically desirable, but that it was not legally necessary. Our view has been entirely clear and consistent from the beginning. To their credit, the Liberal Democrats, although entirely wrong, have also been consistent and clear about where they stand. The fact is that we simply are not going to agree.

Lord Mackay of Clashfern: My Lords, is it the case that the advice that the Government received from the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General on whether, in the circumstances of there being no second resolution—I use that expression advisedly, since, as the Minister said, it is possible to number them differently—was the only opinion that he gave them on the legality of the war? That is what I understood the Cabinet Secretary to say in his evidence to the House of Commons Public Administration Select Committee.
	Does she also agree that, in the exchange of correspondence between the Attorney-General's office and the Prime Minister's office, the Attorney-General's legal secretary said that the determination of whether there was a material breach of Resolution 1441 was a matter for the Prime Minister and that, therefore, the Attorney-General sought the confirmation of the Prime Minister that that was so? That is the justification which is given in paragraph 8 of the Written Answer by the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay of Cartvale.
	The complete opinion that Attorney-General gave, subject to the fact that it was dependent on the correspondence from the Prime Minister, is contained in the Written Answer that was given in this House. Anything before that was, at best, provisional and subject to whatever was happening at the time. Consequently, we have an expression of the Attorney-General's reasoning. That is the only reasoning, in the circumstances of formal legal advice, which he gave to the Government on the legality of the war.
	Is it the case also that the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General confirmed to the Ministry of Defence on the day before he received the letter from the Prime Minister's office that, in his view, the war was legal? That was communicated to the Chief of Defence Staff, if my recollection is right, on 14 March. I have assumed—I think that it is a reasonable assumption—that the noble and learned Lord the Attorney-General had received that confirmation verbally from the Prime Minister before he received confirmation in writing on 15 March. I am asking, really, whether the Minister can say that that is an accurate statement of the position.
	I am offering no view at all on whether the Attorney-General's legal advice was right, as it is not my business to do so. I am not raising that issue, but I want to have a clear view of what exactly that advice was and whether it is not true that all of it has really already been published by the Government through the parliamentary Answer that was given to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay.

Lord Garden: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer to my noble friend, because what she has just said is certainly true. But I shall go back a stage to discuss the legality of the military going in, in the first place. She said that Miss Wilmshurst was only an independent voice, but her letter suggests that her views were shared by the Attorney-General before he changed them twice subsequently. But perhaps more importantly, United nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that the intervention was illegal.
	I should like reassurance on one point. Should it at some stage in future come to pass that an international court examines the legality of the operation, can the Minister reassure the House that the military command structure from the Chief of Defence Staff down, did everything possible to ensure that they had sufficient cover for legality, and that any responsibility in an international court would have to be taken by the Government and the Ministers involved at the time, rather than the military personnel who carried out the operation?

Lord Wedderburn of Charlton: My Lords—

Baroness Amos: My Lords, I should like to repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place. The Statement is as follows:
	"With permission, Mr Speaker, I shall make a Statement about the European Council that took place in Brussels on 22 and 23 March.
	"This was the fifth in a series of summits about the Lisbon agenda on economic reform in Europe. It is the British case that economic reform is not going as far or as fast as it must. Nevertheless, over the past five years, 6 million extra jobs have been created in Europe. We have opened up the telecommunications market. The gas and electricity markets have been liberalised, bringing new choice to consumers. Air travel has also been opened up, bringing cheaper air tickets. In the recent World Economic Forum study of international competitiveness, six EU states were among the 15 most competitive nations in the world. Britain is one of them and has risen a number of places in the past year.
	"So there is some progress. But, the truth is that there used to be eight EU countries in the top 15. There are still far too many unemployed in Europe; too many businesses unable to compete as they should be able to. So that is the EU's challenge.
	"The European Council rightly decided yesterday to support the Barroso Commission's emphasis on growth and jobs as the first order priorities. There was also strong support for the Commission's proposals for improving and simplifying its approach to regulation.
	"The Services Directive is at the heart of this next phase of the Lisbon programme. Services account for 70 per cent of both the UK and EU economies. The directive is intended to liberalise this market. It does this by requiring national governments to make it easier for European service companies to establish on their territory so regulatory regimes must be simplified and made accessible. It also facilitates temporary cross-border trade in services.
	"This is unquestionably an ambitious measure. Authoritative studies show it could bring at least 600,000 new jobs in the EU, and add some 37 billion euros to the European economy. Many of the accusations made about it are unfounded or overstated. It does not mean that workers from a low cost member state can work permanently under their country of origin wages and conditions in another member state. The Posted Workers Directive already prevents this. It does not mean either that consumer protection and health and safety legislation will be circumvented or abandoned. Again, there are complementary measures which cover these areas.
	"It is true that there are some genuine concerns about the implications of the proposals—for example, for us the impact on the National Health Service—which need to be addressed in the negotiations. The directive inevitably and rightly will be amended as it goes through its legislative process. The Commission signalled this several weeks ago. It confirmed this again at the European Council. But these changes will be part of the normal legislative and negotiating process. Fortunately, the final decision will be by QMV. None of this has changed as a result of this European Council, whose conclusions were, of course, subject to the unanimity rule and over which, therefore, any member state had a veto.
	"To have withdrawn this directive as some wished would have been a grave injustice and error for Europe's economy. President Barroso is, therefore, absolutely right to maintain it. The Commission remains committed to the main principles of the directive, as do we, and many other EU governments, notably those from the new member states. Its adoption will be a key test of Europe's seriousness about reform.
	"The issue which underlies the debate about the Services Directive is the future of the European social model. Some, notably France, believe this model should remain in its existing form. Some, like Britain, believe firmly in Europe's social dimension but want it updated to take account of modern economic reality. Fortunately, in this debate—that will dominate discussion of Europe's economic future over the coming years, just as the debate over the transatlantic alliance will dominate debate on foreign policy—we have the benefit of some empirical evidence. The UK has shown that it is possible to have flexible labour markets combined with a minimum wage, tax credits to help families into work, family friendly policies to help work/life balance, the New Deal for the unemployed, record investment in education and skills and a strong economy. I believe that this is the modern social model for Europe, and recognised as such by many of our partners. The result has been higher growth, higher employment and lower unemployment for the UK. These successes can be replicated across Europe with the right policies.
	"It is worth adding that the UK has also benefited from its decision, unique among the large member states, to open its labour markets to workers from the new member states. Far from disrupting our labour markets, they have for the most part made a positive contribution to the British economy. If we want Europe to compete not just with the United States of America but China and India in the future, this type of open and flexible economy is precisely what we need.
	"I should report briefly to the House on four other issues covered during this European Council. We endorsed the deal reached in ECOFIN on reform of the Stability and Growth Pact. This introduces a more sophisticated system for implementing the rules, taking account of issues like the level of debt, investment and the impact of the economic cycle, all in line with UK objectives, while maintaining financial prudence.
	"On climate change, we discussed a long-term strategy for the EU, including progressive targets for reducing emissions. We shall take this process forward in the context of our G8 and EU presidencies later this year.
	"On Africa, the European Council noted the Commission for Africa's report and agreed that we had to step up our support for the continent. There is now unanimous support inside Europe for the policies that can confront the challenge, indeed the scandal, of thousands of African children who die needlessly every day and, where they survive, live lives of unimaginable poverty and deprivation. 2005 must be Africa's year.
	"On Croatia, we discussed follow-up to the recent decision by European foreign Ministers to postpone accession negotiations, but to start as soon as there is full co-operation by the Croatian government with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia.
	"The British Government in principle strongly support Croatian membership of the EU. The next step is likely to be EU discussions with Croatia, led by the present and future presidencies, about how to achieve full co-operation with the tribunal. I should add that we also strongly supported democracy in Lebanon.
	"As was obvious from this Council and from the recent NATO/EU summits, there is a big debate going on in Europe today. It is vital to Europe's future. It is vital, too, to the future of Britain. In this debate, we know where we stand: in favour of the transatlantic alliance as the bedrock of our security; in favour of adapting Europe's economy to the future as the path to our prosperity. It is a debate in which we have allies. It is a debate we can win. But to win we have to participate fully, wholeheartedly, and with self-confidence and belief; not marginalising Britain, reducing it to the role of spectator. The policy of this Government is clear: to be at the centre of the debate, not the margins. I commend this Statement to the House".
	My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement.
	The House might be interested to know that the Prime Minister left the summit without giving a press conference—something unknown in new Labour's history. Does that not tell us all that we need to know about how he assessed what is increasingly becoming a humiliating fiasco?
	On the Lisbon agenda, the Statement had fine words, but what the conclusions actually say is, "The results are mixed; there are shortcomings; it is essential to re-launch the strategy; the Union should better tap into their synergies." I do not know about tapping into synergies, but I do know that you do not have to be as old a political hand as most noble Lords to recognise phraseology like that as spin to cover failure.
	There is great affection in the House for the noble Baroness and we shall miss her if press reports are correct that she is on her way to the United Nations. But will it not be with a great sense of relief that she closes her file today and realises that never again will she have to defend the Prime Minister's policies or his record of failure in Europe? It is a failure whether you judge it from my standpoint or that of the noble and learned Lord, Lord McNally, the leader of the Liberal Democrat Peers. Oh—he is not learned yet. Perhaps he is learned in other ways.
	The summit represents the end of a parabola of the Prime Minister's engagement with Europe. It began eight years ago with promises to lead Britain into the euro; promises in two election manifestos to give the British public a chance to vote on the euro; promises like so many others that proved to be just talk. It has ended with a stinging one-sentence dismissal of the euro project by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his Budget. Did the Prime Minister explain Mr Brown's remarks to his EU colleagues? Or did he not want to admit who rules the economic roost in his increasingly divided Government?
	The Prime Minister's aspirations on the euro have crumbled. So too in Brussels did all his talk, repeated again in this Statement, for reform of the failed European social model. Eight years ago, the Prime Minister signed away Britain's opt-out from the Social Chapter. He bought into the European social model, which he now criticises, just at the time when its long-term cost was becoming apparent. Since then, Europe's economies have gone into reverse gear. Does the noble Baroness agree the European Union social model is unsustainable? Has she read paragraph 30 of the presidency conclusions, which states:
	"The Commission will reflect in the context of its ongoing work on the issues arising about how to ensure sustainable funding of our social model and will report".
	That is pure Euro-speak. In English, it means, "We are bust, and we do not have a clue what to do about it". So will the noble Baroness explain, given all the talk about the EU debate that is coming Britain's way, why the Prime Minister agreed that the failed social model should take precedence over vital free trade in services?
	The story of the Prime Minister and the social model is naive acceptance at the outset, big talk in the interim, and utter failure to secure reform at the end—rather like his experience on the euro. Paragraph 22 of the presidency conclusions on the single market in services, which is a key national interest for this country, states:
	"The internal market of services has to be fully operational while preserving the European social model. In the light of this ongoing debate which shows that the directive as it is currently drafted does not fully meet these requirements, the European Council requests all efforts be undertaken within the legislative process in order to secure a broad consensus that meets all these objectives".
	Well, there we are. I hope that the noble Baroness can clarify for the House what that means.
	Is it not the case that the Prime Minister went to Brussels to argue for free trade in services, which the Statement rightly says could bring 600,000 new jobs to Europe, but dropped his commitment to please the French president? Is it not the truth that when it comes to French national interest or German national interest when Europe would benefit from free trade, French politics wins, the EU loses, and the Prime Minister limply agrees?
	The leader of the French socialist party declared:
	"We can say today that the directive is finished and abandoned".
	So much for the UK's vital national interest. Was it not also shameful and humiliating that having given those commitments the Prime Minister was stabbed in the back by President Chirac as he drove to the airport, as France launched a new drive against the UK's rebate? So much for the fraternité between No. 10 and the Elysée Palace.
	Finally, I have laboured my points enough this afternoon, but the noble Baroness will be expecting me to raise the issue of Zimbabwe. I am sorry that I have to do it again. The Statement postures about 2005 being "Africa's year". Rightly, it draws our attention to the tragedy of dying children, poverty and deprivation, and we strongly support effective action to help Africa. But is it not dismal that yet again in the presidency conclusions the tyranny, terror and deprivation in Mugabe's despicable Zimbabwe were simply ignored in Brussels? The House respects the personal commitment of the noble Baroness to this issue, but the EU has once again said nothing and done nothing, and the blame for that lies not with her but with her right honourable friend the Prime Minister. In that aspect too the Brussels summit was a fiasco and a failure.

Lord Strathclyde: My Lords, I cannot possibly let the noble Baroness get away with that. She has only to remember the Lancaster House agreement, which was led by my noble friend Lord Carrington. It built on the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, when he was Foreign Secretary. I cannot imagine what on earth the noble Baroness has been talking about. That was a great success for the Conservative Party, building on the work of the Labour Party when it was in Government.

Lord Tomlinson: My Lords, first, I disagree with my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davies in the remarks that he made about the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde. The noble Lord approached his speech with all the characteristics of a stand-up comic, which leaves him well-qualified to remain a long time as the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition.
	Regarding the Statement, I wish to raise two issues with my noble friend, one that is in the Statement and one that is not, but both involve President Chirac. Will my noble friend confirm that President Chirac has no veto over the Services Directive? That directive is clearly, as the Statement said and as we know, of fundamental importance to this country, to the European economy and to the growth within Europe and its international competitiveness. While President Chirac may have a veto on the wording of presidency conclusions from a European Council meeting on the legislative process of the Services Directive, this is one of the areas where, thank goodness, we have no vetos but have qualified majority voting. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, will be the first to welcome that, so that we can make progress on this important directive.
	On the other hand, will she comment on President Chirac's ill-advised words at his press conference regarding the British rebate? Is it not true that this is one of the areas where my right honourable friend the Prime Minister has properly safeguarded the British veto, where there is no qualified majority voting and where we have all the cards in our hand? Did not my right honourable friend Mr Jack Straw make that clear at the summit? Perhaps she can confirm that there is one simple way of getting rid of the British rebate, and that is to reform the common agricultural policy in such a way as to achieve greater equilibrium of payments into it and receipts from it. Mathematically, the British rebate would then disappear. That was the point of view supported at the Convention on the Future of Europe.

Baroness Amos: My Lords, my noble friend is right. The entire House seems to be in a type of pre-holiday mood. Regarding the two main questions asked by my noble friend, I can confirm that heads of governments have a veto over presidency conclusions, but the issue of the Services Directive will be decided by QMV. With respect to the British rebate, my noble friend is again absolutely right. It was confirmed by my right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary that the UK does have a veto and he made it clear that we will use it if we need to.
	Regarding my noble friend Lord Tomlinson's final point about reform of the common agricultural policy— this has, of course, been a key element of our strategy. My right honourable friend Margaret Beckett has worked tirelessly to achieve this and, in addition, we feel that wider reform of the trade rules with respect to unfair subsidies and opening up access to markets needs urgently to be considered.

Lord Patten: My Lords, I have four points to make. First, I cannot predict how many, if any, amendments will be accepted during the course of your Lordships' considerations this afternoon. However, someone more statistically adept than me has calculated that 94 amendments will make their way down the corridor to another place. An informal message has come from another place that they will devote precisely one hour to the consideration of these amendments.
	I cannot under any circumstances advise another place how to proceed, but I know that there are those listening on the Government Front Bench who are members of the Whips' Office and the usual channels. I was never considered brutal enough to be employed in the Whips' Office in another place, not having that underlying streak of toughness which I am sure is inherent and present in many of those who serve your Lordships on both sides of the Chamber, but I think that an informal message might go through the usual channels to another place that an hour simply is not good enough.

Lord Alton of Liverpool: My Lords, I am happy to help the noble Lord on that point. I, too, was looking at these amendments. Every one of the 94 amendments to which the noble Baroness referred is a government amendment. Of course, some of them reverse amendments that were passed in another place. The Member of Parliament for Knowsley North, for example, has moved amendments which have been placed by Lords amendments. I am sure that those in another place will have a view on these matters.

Lord Patten: My Lords, I wish only that the amendments, whoever has tabled and considered them, should be properly considered in another place and in this House when they come back.
	My second point is that the conscience issue, like the pro-life, euthanasia and Eugenics Society issues, will be highlighted increasingly in future years. Whoever forms the government after the next general issue will find conscience issues coming increasingly to the fore. Only this morning, the Select Committee on Science and Technology in the other place made an announcement on what the media would call "designer babies". I can see those issues roaring up the political agenda. The Front Benches on both sides of the House will need to be prepared for that issue, which, I know, everyone in this House agrees is not party-political.
	Thirdly, there are other issues that bite on conscience matters. Doctors must consider conscience issues all the time and sometimes they have to weigh them up against cost. I wish to return to the Burke judgment, currently before the courts, as it bites wholly on the conscience issue, and the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton of Upholland, in Committee about the reasons why the Government wish to appeal that judgment. I quote exactly, not out of context:
	"However, the judgment could be read as allowing patients to request any life-sustaining treatment, even if it was harmful to the patient or if the treatment was not available, such as a transplant or a very expensive, experimental treatment that in the clinical judgment of doctors was not appropriate or in the patient's best interests".—[Official Report, 8/2/05; col. 739.]
	Those are the only grounds on which the Department of Health has joined appeal; that is what the noble Baroness said.
	However, there is now in circulation a letter from the Department of Health's office of the solicitor to the registrar of the Civil Appeals Office, dated 7 December 2004, seeking access by the Secretary of State for Health to request the court's permission to intervene in the appeal. In paragraph 16 the solicitor writes in this context,
	"the Secretary of State would wish to put before the Court evidence of the actual cost of ANH in individual cases and the incidence of the provision of ANH (or artificial nutrition or artificial hydration on their own) in NHS hospitals. Again, it is the Secretary of State who is best placed to make these points, as they affect the NHS as a whole; and the Secretary of State who has perhaps the most direct interest (as, ultimately, the providing and paying party) in being able to address the Court on these matters".
	It is very important that the Minister clarifies whether the simple cost of the provision of ANH is a material matter to the Government. I could well imagine that if the noble Baroness says "Yes" and that she agrees with the grounds for entering the appeal put forward by her right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health, many people would find their conscientious objections strengthened not weakened.
	Fourthly, and lastly, some feel that the statute book should not be cluttered up with declaratory statements—otiose verbiage on the face of statutes. I say a brisk "Hear, hear!" to that. However, where there are important issues of conscience and where there is disturbance in those whom we seek to serve in the wider world, as democrats in this place as in another place, it is of enormous value to have a declaratory provision in the Bill in a case such as this. After all, the Government have included a declaratory provision at the beginning of Part 3:
	"For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that nothing in this Act is to be taken to affect the law relating to murder or manslaughter or the operation of section 2 of the Suicide Act 1961 (C.60)(assisting suicide)".
	Given that precedent, and the fact that the statute book is full of such declaratory statements, I do not see, in the face of the powerful arguments put forward by my noble friend Lady Knight of Collingtree, that there could be any objection to assuaging the fears of those who do not think that they will be protected by the European Convention on Human Rights if this declaratory provision is not included. There is no reason why the provision should not be included.

Lord Turnberg: My Lords, as I understand the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, they are not designed to ensure that doctors and others can object, because of their conscience, to proceeding with this process. We all want provision to be made for conscience objection; the question is whether it needs to be included in the Bill in this form or whether it exists elsewhere.
	That leads us to the very legal discussion of whether or not sufficient protection already exists for those with a conscientious objection—unfortunately, I am not a lawyer. Until today, I believed that there was. As I understand this Bill and other legislation, there is protection. If that is the case, we certainly do not need this provision.
	To reassure a consultant who may resign is not a good reason for including a provision in the Bill, if he could be reassured by another means. I look forward very much to the Minister's explanation of exactly what protection already exists. I believe that it does exist.

Lord Christopher: My Lords, I apologise for being late—in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, who has been very kind to me recently. I realised that I had not paid my lunch bill and I did not want to leave the House for a week in debt.
	It is very difficult to argue with what the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said, but I am extremely grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for confirming what was in my mind. I do not quarrel with the thought that conscience may become more of an issue as years go by. There are all sorts of reasons for why that is so and it begs the very important question of how it should be dealt with in Parliament. Should it be dealt with in legislation or in some other way?
	My common sense told me, which the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, confirmed, that if a doctor or a nurse has a serious conscientious problem over what he or she is asked to do, it would be an extraordinary organisation that did not somehow meet that problem, which I think has been confirmed. In a sensible organisation one does not want to have an argument. Indeed, that happens on occasion with our Whips when we say, "I am terribly sorry. In conscience, I cannot oppose a Liberal Democrat amendment". It is not a difficulty that arises frequently but it can arise. Therefore, it is far better to consider alternative ways to deal with the problem.
	I shall conclude with an anecdote, because something that the noble Lord, Lord Patten, said rang a bell with me. Here we are in the very last knockings, perhaps, of legislation in this Parliament. My anecdote goes back to 1976 when I was on the Civil Service council that dealt with pay and we had what I thought was a good offer. We were arguing. Some of my colleagues were saying that it was not enough, "No" and so forth.
	Off the top of my head, I said, "Do you realise that here we are havering around and that any minute we may hear that the Prime Minister has resigned"? There was a knock at the door and a secretary walked in with a note to give to the chair. It said, "The Prime Minister has just resigned". We never got that pay award.
	There is a serious risk, if we are not careful throughout the rest of this day, that we may lose all the good that is in this Bill. I hope that no noble Lord, except in the most extreme circumstances, which I do not see on the Marshalled List, is prepared to push this to the brink, because we may throw the baby out with the bath water.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, that would be extremely helpful, for we need the identities in order to follow up the cases with the individual trusts. If the examples are as they seemed, the issue is not one of this Bill, but is one of ensuring that the way in which the NHS is operating is appropriate. We would want to do that. I am grateful to the noble Lord for clarifying that he will do that, and I look forward to receiving the information.
	Case law is very clear on these issues. It may be helpful if I briefly set out the current position, both in case law and in medical guidance. All health professionals have the right, whether for reasons of conscience or on other grounds, to transfer the care of a patient to a colleague. In Re B, the President of the Family Division said:
	"If . . . the doctors are for any reason unable to carry out the wishes of the patient, their duty is to find other doctors who will do so".
	Medical guidance is similarly clear. GMC guidance concerning conscientious objections to the withdrawal or withholding of treatment from a patient refers to the doctor's duty to,
	"ensure, without delay, that arrangements have been made for another suitably qualified colleague to take over their role, so that the patient's care does not suffer".
	The BMA guidance about a doctor's conscientious objection following an advance decision to refuse treatment states:
	"In an emergency, if delegation is impossible, the doctor or nurse must comply",
	with that decision, while of course ensuring that he or she finds someone to take over the care.
	The position is different from that of the Abortion Act 1967. I am trying to check for the noble Lord, Lord Alton, precisely what monitoring has been done since the Select Committee reported 15 years ago. I am sure he will understand that, because we are dealing with this Bill, I do not have to hand what happened as a consequence of looking at the Abortion Act.
	The explicit conscience clause in the Abortion Act modifies the duties which would otherwise be imposed on the clinician by the law of negligence. It provides a defence against liability in a case where the clinician does not provide the treatment. As noble Lords propose, the equivalent in this Bill would be to provide a defence against liability in assault, when a doctor treated a patient when that treatment was contrary to either the patient's valid and applicable advance refusal or contrary to the patient's best interests.
	These amendments, if carried, would change the current position on conscientious objection for patients who lack capacity. They would allow for a doctor to withdraw from the care of a patient without making arrangements for that care to be transferred. They would protect a doctor from liability if, for reasons of conscience, he continued to treat the patient when that treatment was contrary to the valid and applicable advance decision, bearing in mind the safeguards that that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, has already described about the test of being satisfied and how that test is, if you like, at the bottom end of the scale to ensure that if doctors have any concerns at all they can treat without fear of any liability.
	Under this amendment, doctors could also give treatment even when it was contrary to the patient's best interests. That flies in the face of everything we are trying to establish in the Bill. The amendment would also create a confusing situation whereby a doctor with a conscientious objection would have to arrange for substitute care for a patient who has capacity, but could simply walk away from a patient who lacks capacity. That cannot be right.
	It is important to balance the right of a doctor to conscientious objection with the rights of patients to decide what treatment they would want to refuse. That is what happens now. I believe that we should continue in that vein.
	I want to tackle briefly the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Patten, which I am sure he would accept are slightly wide of the amendment before us. None the less, I am prepared to deal with them. I should say, first, that the Government will give evidence in the Burke case on life-sustaining treatment in general, which of course includes ANH. It is relevant to the appeal. I shall quote precisely what the Department of Health has said:
	"We agree that people should be able to request artificial nutrition and hydration. That is what happens now and this is not the aspect of judgment which has motivated us to appeal".
	I do not think that the department could be clearer than that. As I have said at previous stages, we must look at the breadth of the judgment which suggests within it that patients can demand treatments. That is an issue both in terms of doctors' clinical judgment and, ultimately, in terms of resources. In those circumstances and drawing on his own experience, the noble Lord will not be surprised to hear that clarity is being sought by the department.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, sadly, I take issue with the noble Earl, Lord Howe. I say "sadly" because, throughout the Bill, I have found his inputs into our discussions perhaps more valuable than those of anyone else for the reason that he was not a member of the Joint Committee which scrutinised the Bill. I have found the way in which he has analysed many of the arguments put forward in the Joint Committee to be a great test of the assumptions of many of the people who have been involved in this legislation for a long time. So it is with great regret that I take issue with him on this point.
	I do so for one principal reason. One of the many amendments brought forward by the Government related to equal treatment. It was a response to amendments brought forward at an earlier stage from these Benches. During the discussion on that amendment, I stated that I believed that the provisions surrounding equal treatment for people who have disabilities, who are old or who have specific conditions were perhaps some of the most fundamentally important provisions in the Bill.
	As someone who has supported the Bill as wholeheartedly as possible all the way through, I have throughout all our discussions and deliberations never ever discounted the fears that people with disabilities have about the legislation. The arguments were put forcibly to the House by the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman.
	Those of us who were involved in the Joint Committee discussions will remember the extremely powerful arguments put forward by Jane Campbell, a severely disabled lady, who wrote about going to hospital and willing herself not to sleep for the duration of being in hospital in order that she would not receive adverse treatment. Jane Campbell made one particular point very forcefully: that the one person she trusted above anyone else was her husband. Not doctors, not friends, not advocates; her husband.
	She had clearly done what has to be done under Clause 11(8)(a) as it stands at the moment. She had discussed in great detail with her husband, at a time when she had capacity, exactly what she wanted to happen. The clause states that subsection (7)(b), which relates to lasting powers of attorney,
	"does not authorise the giving or refusing of consent to the carrying out or continuation of life-sustaining treatment, unless the instrument contains express provision to that effect".
	I believe that means that it has to be in writing. So an attorney will have to have debated and discussed this matter with the person, and it will have to have been recorded in writing.
	As the noble Baroness, Lady Knight, said, we are talking about one of the most difficult and serious decisions that any person can make. It cannot be taken lightly. I therefore believe very strongly—and the noble Lord, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, may perhaps be surprised to hear me say this because we have not always agreed throughout the Bill about the balance that carers and relatives should have in these matters—that an attorney, a person chosen by someone, should be the person who makes this most serious of all decisions.
	I do not for one moment in any way question the motivation of the noble Earl, Lord Howe, but, just this once, I believe that the balance of the argument is perhaps against him. I am sorry, but I cannot support him on this occasion.

The Lord Bishop of St Albans: My Lords, I apologise for rising prematurely. It reminded me of a rather odd thing that happened to me once in a crematorium. I was about to press the button and heard over the tannoy system, "Charlie Bravo 50, come in, please". It was the local police car going past. I apologise for my inability to understand all the rules.
	I have the greatest respect for the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and his desire, which I share totally, that there should be no loopholes in the Bill that could be used to introduce euthanasia. But, unless I am mistaken—I really do not think that I am—there have been a number of amendments to the Bill that have closed all the loopholes possible. We have also had assurances on a number of occasions from the Minister that it is not the Government's intention to allow any such loopholes to exist that could be used for euthanasia or assisted suicide. I believe that there is also, therefore, in such statements, a matter of trust and honour. When such statements are made, I believe them, because this House is a place where honour matters greatly.
	Examples have been given about someone who makes an advance directive which says, in certain envisaged circumstances:
	"I wish to commit suicide and to be assisted in my suicide by the only legal means available to me—that is, by withholding life-sustaining treatment".
	At an intellectual level, that is a fascinating and rather macabre philosophical point to debate—the kind of thing that I would have debated 100 years ago, when I was at theological college. But actually, the distance in time between such an advance directive and the circumstances that then follow could be very long. I find therefore the gap between intention and outcome very difficult to comprehend.
	I believe that the example is flawed, because the person making it—or so it seems to me—is playing a semantic game, in which withholding treatment and allowing nature to take its course is then redefined as suicide. I cannot get my head around what is going on in that person's mind to redefine things in such a way, unless it is for a strangely perverse and political purpose. I suppose that it would raise a question about whether such a chain of argument could be described as being entirely reasonable. So I do not believe that those semantic games could or should be taken seriously.
	Clause 58 is fairly key, as far as I can see. The example is also flawed because there is no guarantee that the circumstances that that person imagined when drawing up that extraordinary advance directive will necessarily be the ones that apply exactly at the time. Thirdly, I confess myself baffled, as I suspect that the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, is, about how one can actually know of a comatose person whether or not they have changed their mind. I simply cannot know. All that I have to go on therefore is what they have already said, and I have to trust that when they made that initial decision, they made it reasonably and in good faith. If I cannot know then, well, full stop—I cannot know. I suppose that the question is whether the advance directive provisions in the Bill can trump other clauses.
	I want to place on record my personal belief that this is a very remarkable Bill. It is noble and humane in its purpose and will ensure that the most vulnerable in our society, which can be and may be each one of us here today, are accorded the dignity and respect that is coterminous with being human. So I wish the Bill every success on its journey.

Earl Howe: My Lords, this has the appearance of a very ingenious amendment, but I want to be sure that I fully understand it. I have always understood that the legal meaning of "purpose" encompasses both intention and foreseeable consequences. Therefore, if I am correct in paraphrasing it, the first part of the amendment says that you can take a decision to do anything as long as the person's death is not the foreseeable consequence of what you are doing. If that is right, it would seem at first sight to cut across the decision in Bland which expressly foresaw that death would result from the withdrawal of treatment. I should be glad if the noble Lord could clarify that point, because, although I listened very carefully to him, I have had difficulty with it.
	My second difficulty is with the second half of the amendment. I am sure it is my fault but I just cannot get my head round it. It appears to be saying that where the decision maker has a belief that what he is doing will bring about P's death, that is all right so long as—referring back to the first half of the amendment—the foreseeable consequence of what he is doing is not P's death. It is important that the noble Lord clarifies the distinction between foreseeable consequences and belief because I have not grasped it.

Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Alton, may find it easier if we all make our points and then he can address them.
	I say to the noble Lord, Lord Elton, that we have had many discussions on the issue of giving food and drink and artificial nutrition and hydration. I can give him a pamphlet on that by an expert in palliative care. However, there is a distinction between basic care involving the giving of food and drink if someone is capable of a swallowing mechanism, and artificial nutrition and hydration which constitutes treatment as it bypasses the body's natural functions. The latter constitutes a medical intervention requiring blood tests and the observation of kidney functions. It can occasionally cause discomfort to the patient and is regarded as serious. Therefore, there is a real distinction there.
	I know why the noble Lord, Lord Alton, tabled this amendment. He has sought to correct the difficulties of the previous "purpose" amendment that was tabled. But, in fact, this amendment is even more fundamentally flawed than the previous amendment. It is completely unworkable in both law and in clinical practice.
	The noble Earl, Lord Howe, indicated that there are real difficulties with using the word "purpose" in this context. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, who is not present today, discussed this at a previous stage. I wish to be absolutely clear with noble Lords. English law is clear. We have taken advice from the widest range of lawyers on this point, including the Lord Chancellor and the senior judiciary, and they are all unanimous. The Law Lords have been explicit—"purpose" includes acting with the clear foresight that death will result. That is why the Government created new Clause 4(5) which focuses on—and bans—decision-makers being motivated by a desire to bring about the person's death.
	But the legal adviser Professor Finnis, who is advising the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, Peter Smith, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, continues his use of the word "purpose" in his amendments. This means that the amendment must be read as prohibiting any decision made where there is a foresight that death will result. As we know, in a palliative care setting when patients are dying, this would mean that every decision taken by a doctor is prohibited.
	I know noble Lords will say that proposed subsection (3) is intended to remedy this, but I am afraid that it simply does not work. Proposed subsection (3) is trying to say that where a decision-maker does not want to bring about the person's death then this decision is permitted even if there is a belief that it will bring about the person's death. It is trying to get around the legal meaning of the word "purpose". But proposed subsection (3) does not achieve that. The only way to do that is to abandon the word "purpose" altogether, which is precisely what we have done in Clause 4(5).
	It is absolutely senseless to ban a "purpose", and then try to create an exception by saying that the ban does not apply if you do not have that purpose. Of course it does not. But that is what proposed subsection (3) tries to do. It states:
	"Where a decision is made for a purpose or purposes not including the purpose mentioned in subsection (2), it is not within that subsection".
	Even if this subsection made sense and was clear, it cannot possibly undo the fact that under English law "purpose" includes the foresight that death will result. It follows that subsection (3) is completely ineffective and does not act as an exception to subsection (2) at all. As such, the amendment is flawed in all the ways that we discussed on Report. That is, it would force doctors to provide treatment to dying patients even where that was not in the patient's best interests. People would have to die in hospital, not at home in comfort with their loved ones.
	It would overturn the Bland judgment, even though the Archbishop of Cardiff has said that he is content to leave the Bland decision unaffected by the Bill. Because the Bill will supersede the common law, it will occupy the field of the common law and all those decisions will be dealt with under the Bill. The noble Lord cannot argue that the Bland decision is somehow outside the Bill. It would overturn the principle of double effect and leave patients without the pain relief that they need at the end of their life. It would disallow people from refusing treatment in advance where they could foresee that death might result. No Jehovah's Witness or any other person of religious conviction would be able to exercise their right—in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses to refuse blood and in the case of other religious groups to refuse other forms of treatment—according to their religion.
	I have a couple of other points to make to the noble Lord, because we keep coming back to the question of suicidally-motivated advance decisions. I say again for the record that in the Bill we have made the position better and stronger. First, for an advance decision to be valid, it must pass the formality test. We have made it absolutely clear that it must be in writing. Doctors will no longer have to worry about whether a suicide note containing a refusal of a particular treatment is a legally binding advance decision. It will not count unless the formality tests of being witnessed, in writing, and signed, have been met. Secondly, we have made it clear that the doctor can say, "Even though I have got that, I am not satisfied". It is a subjective test, and it is much easier than the objective tests that we talked about earlier in our proceedings. "I am not satisfied that this document is a proper, valid and applicable decision, and I want to proceed with treatment". The doctor can do that.
	Thirdly, even if the formality tests are met and even if the doctor is nervous about saying that they are not satisfied, we have said in the Bill that they can treat while referring the matter to the Court of Protection. The Bill creates a new let-out. It says that nothing in an apparent advance decision stops a person providing life-sustaining treatment or preventing serious deterioration while a decision is sought from the court. The Bill does the reverse of what the noble Lord, Lord Alton, claims. It will make it much harder for any suicidally-motivated advance decision to bind a doctor. Any attempt made to request assisted suicide through an advance decision must be regarded because assisting suicide is illegal and remains illegal under the Bill.
	I have said that at every stage of the Bill. I have said it to any noble Lord who has come past my office. I have said it to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and to Archbishop Peter Smith, and to Professor Finnis. That is the position of the Bill. I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment and see the Bill on its way.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, I can think of no better way to end today's proceedings. Noble Lords may know that charity accounts are very close to my heart. Charity accounts and the NHS—what a great way to finish.
	I thank the noble Baroness for her, as ever, full introduction to the subject. I accept much of what she said—certainly about the cost savings—but I have one or two questions to put to her. I listened carefully to what she said. At the beginning of her speech, she said that these were the only bodies in either the NHS or the private sector that were subject to dual reporting. In the voluntary sector, thousands of organisations are subject to dual reporting because they are both a company and a charity. However, there is a crucial difference: they submit the same set of accounts to the two bodies. The noble Baroness stated that the problem was that people had different accounting periods. I wonder whether much of the difficulty could have been addressed by aligning the two accounting periods rather than changing the bodies.
	I have two further questions. I note what the regulations say about the requirement on the trusts to comply, as do all other charities, with the charity SORP and, in particular, what they say about the thresholds above which one has to have audited accounts and below which one can have an independent financial review. I notice that there is a proposal for that to change, and I ask the noble Baroness whether that is predicated, as it appears to be in the Explanatory Memorandum, on the Charities Bill going ahead—it is currently proceeding through your Lordships' House—or whether it is simply a matter that the trusts will have to follow the new charity SORP.
	I am slightly intrigued about one matter. The noble Baroness talked about non-charitable funds being held on trust. Sadly for her, I understand the difference between charitable income and non-charitable trading, restricted income and so on. Am I right in assuming that some trusts, governed by trustees, are the recipients of income that has been derived from non-charitable trading? I apologise to the Minister that this is real helmet and anorak stuff, but it is very interesting because the real question is how one knows that charitably given resources are not being used to subsidise statutory functions. That is the question at the heart of this order.